Eating is a very complicated pastime when you think about it. Depending on the situation it can be a very social thing: you could easily be sharing a dinner with friends, out for an afternoon coffee break with co-workers or hosting a potluck party with family. While it’s easy to make daily meals more social, I find that when we treat ourselves with chocolate or candy, it usually tends to be a very solitary activity. There’s lots of reasons for this; maybe your friends or special someone don’t love chocolate like you do, perhaps you don’t want anyone to see you secretly indulge your sweet tooth, or hey, maybe you’re like me and don’t want anyone to notice so you’d have to share. Regardless of the reason, candy consumption can be pretty lonely, and usually in a good way. This is why, when Jelly Belly released its new box of BeanBoozled jelly beans, I was excited to give them a try.

How does eating these BeanBoozled beans relate to social activity you ask? Well, when you look at it, BeanBoozled is more of a game than anything else really, because in essence it’s an edible version of Russian Roulette. Picture this: in the box there are 10 different colored beans with 20 different flavors. The flavor can be a tasty one like buttered popcorn, plum, juicy pear or cafe latte. On the other hand, the flavor could be not so enticing: vomit, skunk spray, pencil shavings or baby wipes (just to name a few). See where this is heading?

So this past Easter Sunday I sat my family down for a game of some BeanBoozled taste testing. I know, the things I put my family through all in the name of candy.

I have to admit, right away, this was a nice change of pace. Instead of all of us sitting on the couch, zoning out to a movie and munching away at our baskets of treats, we instead gathered at the dinner table as I poured out the BeanBoozled beans into a dish in front of us. Here’s a full listing of the flavors:

BeanBoozled Flavor Chart

Black: Licorice or Skunk Spray

Yellow with Brown Spots: Top Banana or Pencil Shavings

White with Yellow Spots: Buttered Popcorn or Rotten Egg

Blue: Berry Blue or Toothpaste

White/Light Beige: Cafe Latte or Ear Wax

Orange with Red Spots: Peach or Vomit

Green with Green Spots: Juicy Pear and Boogers

Light Yellow with Brown Spots: Caramel Corn or Moldy Cheese

White: Coconut or Baby Wipes

Blue with White Spots: Plum or Black Pepper.

We began our game by choosing a starter, then working clockwise from there. The first person would pick out two beans of the same color and decide on a person to “feed” them to. The rules? You have to eat both, and separately. No being fed twice in a row since that’s just cruel.

The game itself was hilarious and tremendously fun: the different reactions of horror, relief, delight and confusion on my family’s faces as they tasted the jelly beans were great. Here’s what I noted of the “gross” flavors I was fed:

Skunk Spray: I got dished a fair amount of these since only my Dad and I like black licorice (getting two “gross” flavors was a no no). These did taste a little skunky, but I got more of a burnt plastic flavor from them. I was able to eat them no problem, though.

Rotten Egg: I’d say 75% of the beans I ate ended up being this flavor. I didn’t like it at all, yet I still managed to swallow them. They did taste eggy; it was mainly a sweet sulfur-like taste and it was followed by a fuzzy, vegetable, moldy flavor. Yeah, it was gross.

Toothpaste: Bright, fresh and minty like toothpaste. I’d eat this one normally (heck, I already do in spice beans)!

Black Pepper: Sharp, burning, peppery taste with floral accents to it. I also liked this one.

Pencil Shavings: Oddly enough, these did have a woody essence to them, with notes of plastic and rubber. I’d say it wasn’t horrible, yet it wasn’t tasty either. Just interesting.

Baby Wipes:(from Brian) Wow – these taste just like baby wipes smell. You can’t truly appreciate these unless you have had kids. Brings back many unpleasant diaper memories.

Despite the fact that I ate more Rotten Egg flavored beans than I cared for, this was really really fun! I didn’t expect it not to be, since eating candy and being with your friends and family always equates to good times. I recommend picking up a box of these for an interesting night of torture, er, fun. Oh, and be sure to share your thoughts on the flavors here when you do!

11 Responses to “Candy Review: Jelly Belly’s BeanBoozled”

Nice article Sera. I’ve been down the Bertie Bott’s path a time or two and have discovered like you that some of the flavors are revolting, while others are interesting but not particularly unpleasant! I’ll definitely have to search out these to try for myself.

I thought the skunk spray flavor tasted just like poop smells. It was horrid and disgusting. Simply awful. The toothpaste flavor was actually pretty good and tastes just like toothpaste. The Jelly Belly folks said some people really like the moldy cheese flavor but I thought it was awful.

I don’t think I would have the balls to try these. That does sound like a fun night… but I would be puking the first time I tasted booger, vomit, or any of the other nasty flavors. I’m a wuss. I was always curious to try the Bertie Botts, but never quite brave enough. :)

I review these for my site a month ago and I couldn’t give a rating. For some reason I didn’t receive half of the flavors, it was a joke. God I don’t even want to remember eating these, some of those flavors that I was able to try made me gag for awhile.

Maybe you should have done these in the dark on movie night…. I can hear the family during “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” yelling out “yuck” and “gross”, and there aren’t even any monkey brains being served yet.

As a taste tester for Jelly Belly, I had to laugh at the responses here. The Beanboozled started out as a new set of Bertie Botts, but it was decided that it would be more fun to make a game of it and there you have it. The Skunk is an interesting flavor, I dont know if it really tastes like skunk or not and wonder just HOW they know what skunk tastes like anyway!

As for the Vomit flavor,originally that started out as pepperoni pizza, but they could not get it just right so they shelved this. When Harry Potter came along and there was a vomit flavored Bertie Bott bean, they remembered the Pizza flavored one and redid the formula and added a little acidic flavor to it, and now you have Vomit.

What you need to do is go back to the jellybelly.com site as we have 4 NEW flavors based on the Cold Stone Ice cream places. 1. Our Strawberry Blonde-tastes just like fresh cut strawberries. 2. Apple pie Ala Cold Stone-When this is warm it tastes exactly like a fresh cut helping of apple pie complete with a sprinkle of cinn. 3. Birthday cake- this tastes like the angel food cake with whipped frosting and sprinkels. 4. Chocolate Decadence- this is a hard one to describe as some say it tastes like a chocolate liqure, some say it tastes like chocolate pudding, some say it tastes like a brownie and some say it tastes like a dark chocolate fudge. The taste IS a little on the strong side so there is no inbetween, you either like it or you dont.

My question is…what poor person had to taste actual boogers, skunk spray, rotten eggs, vomit, etc. and go back and forth (boogers and jelly bean, boogers and jelly bean), in order to get the jelly bellys to taste like the real thing? LOL! Gross.